The handling of laundry in households and other places typically involves storing dirty laundry items in a hamper. In order to provide a large capacity for holding large amounts of laundry, hampers are often constructed in a relatively large size. However, large hampers occupy considerable space and are difficult to package and ship in a compact manner. Consequently, large hampers occupy excessive shelf space in retail stores, and shipping and handling of large packages also presents problems.
Although efforts have been made to provide laundry hampers that can be disassembled in order to reduce the size of their packaging, these efforts have not been wholly successful. Larger hampers have relatively large panels requiring packaging that is still larger than desirable for efficient handling, shipping and display in retail stores. Moreover, ordinary consumers often have such difficulty in assembling the disassembled hampers that they are averse to purchasing them for this reason alone.
Laundry hampers are also typically provided with hinged lids that must be opened by hand. If both hands are occupied by laundry that is being loaded into the hamper, as is often the case, opening the lid can become a problem. Further, the types of foot operated devices that have been proposed have been complicated, prone to malfunctions, and difficult to use.